Despite multiple attempts to improve the adoption of wet wipes by consumers, the disposable wipe industry has been slow to gain market share on the toilet paper field. One option for making disposable wipes accessible to a consumer is a package or container that typically sits on a counter top. However, this option does not fit within the typical bathroom experience of a consumer who is accustomed to sitting at the toilet and having ready access to toilet paper at a mounting location such as toilet paper brackets mounted on the wall or on a stand-alone unit placed within reaching distance from a seated position on the toilet.
Some proposed solutions have attempted to overcome this challenge by wholly replacing the toilet paper roll with a wet-wipe container hung from the toilet roll brackets. Though this places the wipes in a convenient location, it does so by eliminating traditional access to toilet paper. Market research suggests that the majority of wet-wipe consumers also use toilet paper while seated at the toilet.
Further systems have attempted to provide access to both wet wipes and toilet paper at the toilet roll bracket by limiting the size of the toilet paper roll or by providing a relatively small amount of wet wipes which are stored within the wet-wipe dispenser. The challenge with these options is that they create an experience that is much less convenient because the consumer is required to refill the toilet paper roll or the wet wipes on a much more frequent interval.
For example, some approaches use the core of the toilet paper roll to store wet wipes. U.S. Pat. No. RE45,809E attempts to provide a way to dispense wet wipes in a bathroom by utilizing the space in the core of the toilet paper roll. This design utilizes the existing installations of toilet roll brackets without requiring modification or new equipment. However, the design of RE45,809E does not resolve the concern of extremely limited storage space for wet wipes available inside the core of the toilet paper roll. The design further limits the wet wipe storage space by placing other mechanical features such as the spring (and other pieces required for the functionality of the device) inside the core of the toilet paper. Additionally, because of the opening on the end of the device for dispensing of wet wipes, it does not provide a complete barrier to prevent the loss of moisture from the wet wipes stored inside the device.